Confessions of a Confused Teenager, Book Two
by Kaisa Enara
Summary: Alee's still stuck in Middle Earth, and now she's got even more to deal with before getting home. Better summary when I think of one.
1. And So It Resumes

_Hey there, everyone. So, welcome to the second installment of Confessions of a Confused Teenager. Yeah, I know. I can't believe it either._

_Well, not much pre-chapter ranting this time, as I'll miss the bus home if I go on (and won't I look dumb then?). So, we'll just end this with a disclaimer. Listen up, because I'm not going to be repeating myself._

_Anything having to do with the Lord of the Rings trilogy (books, movies, characters, settings, etc.) does not belong to me in any way, shape, or form. They belong to the Tolkien estate, New Line, and all those other people who are not me. I own Alee, because I am Alee._

_That is all. Enjoy._

Chapter I 

I hated life.

No, that wasn't quite right. If the past several weeks had done anything, they'd certainly instilled in me a much greater appreciation of being alive. I hated a lot of things at that moment, but I guess life really wasn't one of them.

I hated myself for wishing for an escape in the first place. I hated whatever sick, sick entity had heard me, taken me seriously, and chucked me into a different dimension (I could just _see_ it looking down on me, munching some Pop Secret, and cackling at its hilarious—_not_—little joke). I hated that I'd gotten to know nine people during my stay in Middle-earth, and then had to watch two of them kick a certain bucket before my very eyes. I hated that one of my companions—a blond, blue-eyed, pointy-eared guy that could make me swoon just by looking at me—was my senior by 2,900 years and some change.

Also, I hated running. Which was all we'd been doing for the past three days.

Confused? Maybe I should back up a little. Okay, here's how it all happened.

A little over a month before, I—your average American teenager—had gotten a bad grade or two, seriously overreacted, and then tripped over a rock, knocking myself out. I woke up very, very far from home, surrounded by a group of people that had apparently fallen out of something by the brothers Grimm. These people—two men, an Elf, a Dwarf, a wizard, and four hobbits—were on a quest to throw an evil ring into some volcano so a gigantic flaming eyeball wouldn't take over the world.

I am not even kidding.

Anyway, I somehow managed to get myself all tangled up in this crazy little quest, and found out that I—your average American teenager—was very likely _in_ Middle-earth to make sure the gigantic flaming eyeball didn't go all, "Well, _this_ sucks. Heeey, _Regular_-earth looks like a pretty sweet place to set up shop. I need to try some of that spiffy Visine stuff they've got there!"

And before I'd even gotten a chance to help out all that much, our big, happy, ring-hating family got all split up. Boromir (one of the men) got killed, and Frodo and Sam (two hobbits) decided to take the Evil Ring and finish up the quest by themselves.

Me? I was with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli (man, Elf, and Dwarf, respectively); the four of us were out to rescue Merry and Pippin (the other hobbits), who'd been captured by monsters called Uruk-hai.

Now, I loved Merry and Pippin to death and was all for helping them out, but all the running was just. Too. Much.

Something you need to understand about me is that I am not athletic. At all. I'm athletic just like the current President is an English major. The day I found out I'd met my phys. ed. requirement for middle school, I'd dropped the class like a hot potato and signed up for art instead. That's how athletic I am.

So I was the one bringing up the rear of the group with Gimli, while Aragorn and Legolas's athletic butts outpaced us by…well, by a whole lot.

I could see them up ahead, if I squinted a little. Legolas stood still and watched Aragorn, who was lying on the ground with one ear pressed to a rock. I'd seen him do it before, but I'd never gotten a chance to ask him just what he was doing.

He suddenly got up, said something to Legolas, and took off running. After shouting for us to hurry up, the Elf followed him.

Gimli and I weren't having any of that.

"Three days' and nights' pursuit," the Dwarf puffed, leaning on a battle-ax like a walking stick. "No food, no rest, and no sign of our quarry but what bare rock can tell. This has to stop."

"Ugh, I…know," I panted. I'd nearly forgotten what it was like to speak without gasping for breath. "We can't _all_ be…Olympic track-runners, here."

Gimli's only response was a noncommittal grunt and a glare before he moved on, leaving me alone.

I couldn't really blame him for being mad at me. After all, I'd gotten the most rest of all of us in the past few days. I'd been _planning_ on pulling my own weight on this rescue mission—honest!—but one can only do so much when one is a naturally slow thirteen-year-old with a mild case of asthma. When said asthma had flared up on the first day of our marathon, I had freaked; my inhaler was in my backpack, which, for whatever reason, had _not_ come to Middle-earth with me. So I'd stopped where I was and prayed my lungs wouldn't explode or whatever.

And Aragorn, despite his occasional tendency to act like a complete jerk to me, was at least kind enough not to leave me to die. He'd picked me up and carried me until I'd gotten my breath back.

Every so-often after that, I'd make a big show of collapsing to the ground, clutching at my throat and wheezing loudly. Aragorn or Legolas would come back for me and pick me up, and I'd get to spend the next half-hour or so enjoying the lovely scenery.

Manipulative? Yeah. Totally. But I wouldn't have been much use to Merry and Pippin half-dead. _Especially_ since we'd have to fight off all the Uruk-hai to rescue them.

I sucked in a deep breath and started jogging after Gimli. Didn't want the guys to get _too_ far ahead of me.

A couple of hours later I'd passed the Dwarf, and had actually managed to catch up with Aragorn and Legolas. Aragorn stopped suddenly (and boy was it funny to watch Legolas zoom right past him and then backtrack). He bent down, and just as I was about to ask what was up with the rock-listening thing, he straightened, holding something green and sparkly in his palm.

It was a little leaf-shaped brooch. A familiar sight, and it should have been: I was wearing one just like it. So were Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. Everyone in the Fellowship of the Ring had gotten one when we'd been in Lothlórien; they were what amounted to club t-shirts for us.

"Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall," Aragorn said, looking intensely at it.

"Well, at least we know they actually _did_ go this way," I commented. Nice, concrete evidence was far better to go on than the word of Aragorn the Rock-Whisperer, in my opinion. I didn't tell him this, though, for fear that he'd revoke my getting-carried privileges.

"They may yet be alive," Legolas said.

"Less than a day ahead of us. We're catching up," Aragorn added, pocketing the brooch. And off he went.

Legolas turned around and called, "Come, Gimli! We're gaining on them!" Then he, too, started running again. I took off after him, but not before I heard a loud, clanking _thud_ somewhere behind me.

Gimli and his eight thousand pounds of armor and weapons must have tripped and gone rolling down another hillside.

I followed Aragorn and Legolas up to the top of a rocky crest (ugh, running _and_ climbing? Not my day at all), and the three of us paused for a moment to wait for Gimli and take in the scenery. The scenery, in this case, being a very big, very empty grassy plain, broken up by the occasional rock.

"Rohan," Aragorn told us. "Home of the Horse-Lords."

Hoo boy. With all the Elves, Dwarves, and hobbits running around this place, these Horse-Lords were probably centaurs. Great. And, hey, hadn't I heard the name Rohan somewhere along the line?

"There's something strange at work here," Aragorn continued. "Some evil gives speed to these creatures, sets their will against us."

I didn't have time to ponder just what was rotten in the state of Rohan, because Legolas seemed to notice something and bounded past me so quick I had to jump out of the way to avoid getting knocked over. He ran off, scaling another rock outcropping with incredible speed.

As I scrambled up after him, I heard Aragorn call up, "Legolas! What do your Elf eyes see?"

When I finally made it to the top, I found Legolas peering into the distance. "The Uruks turn northeast!" he called back. "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard!"

I followed the Elf's gaze and saw…well, nothing. Seriously. Grass, rocks, sky…but no Uruk-hai, no Merry, and no Pippin. Shouldn't I at least have seen some specks on the horizon? Either my eyesight wasn't nearly as good as I'd thought, or Legolas was making things up.

I half-climbed, half-fell off the rocks and went back to where Aragorn, and now Gimli, stood. Aragorn looked pretty disturbed by the Elf's news, and Gimli just looked like he wanted to sit down.

"How does he do that?" I asked. "Legolas, I mean. How does he see all that stuff? Because I looked, and I didn't see _anything!"_

"Elven eyes are much keener than those of men," Aragorn told me. "Legolas could tell a sparrow from a finch a mile off."

"You're kidding," I muttered, sneaking a glance at Legolas—he'd come back down off the rocks and joined us. Then I shrugged and changed the subject. "Okay. So what's the sudden freak-out about this Isengard place? That's got to be better than getting carted off to Mordor, or wherever, right? What's so bad that's in Isengard?"

I got two answers where I'd only been hoping for one. Legolas and Aragorn spoke at the same time, and said, "The White Wizard," and "Saruman," respectively. I could only assume they were referring to the same person. Which…hey, wait. _His_ name was kind of familiar too.

"Wasn't Saruman the guy that tried to avalanche us to death a while back?" I asked.

Aragorn nodded.

"Crap. That _is_ pretty bad," I said. "Guess we should get a move on, huh?"

By the time I'd finished my sentence, Aragorn and Legolas were already gone.

"Mmh…what time is it?" I yawned.

"Just past dawn," Aragorn said, setting me back on the ground. "You've been asleep for an hour or so."

Okay, okay, so I'd faked another asthma attack to sneak some sleep. I'd apologize later. If I apologized at all—what Aragorn didn't know couldn't hurt me.

Legolas, not far from us, was looking up at the sky. "A red sun rises," he said. "Blood has been spilt this night."

"Thank you, Weatherman Legolas," I muttered, "for that incredibly disturbing forecast. Back-cast. Whatever. Back to you, Tom."

The day went on much the same way as the past three had: run, run, fake asthma attack, free piggyback from Legolas, run some more.

Around midafternoon, all that changed.

It started with a low rumbling sound that got a little louder with each passing second. I couldn't quite place it, but it sounded like a miniature earthquake coming our way. Aragorn, who seemed to recognize the sound, ushered us over to the closest rock outcropping, where we hid in a little cranny between the boulders.

It was kind of a tight squeeze—a bit like what I imagined being mashed into a phone booth with three other people would be like—and I wanted out after the first minute or so.

The noise got really loud then, like its source was going right by us. I leaned out to see, and that in itself was quite a feat. In order to see past the rocks, I had to lean waaay over and twist my neck at an angle only comfortable to contortionists and that girl from _The Exorcist_.

What I saw were, presumably, the Horse-Lords Aragorn had been talking about.

They weren't centaurs; in fact, they were just human horsemen decked out in armor and green-and-gold livery. A _lot_ of human horsemen decked out in armor and green-and-gold livery.

Apparently, Aragorn had expected someone—or some_thing_—of a more sinister nature, because he climbed right out of our hiding-place and waved as the horsemen rode by.

"Riders of Rohan! What news from the Mark?" he called. He had to shout over the cacophony of horses' hooves and clanking chain mail.

As Legolas, Gimli, and I joined Aragorn, the riders pulled a U-turn, headed back toward us…

…And surrounded us. Making sure their many spears were nice and visible. What in god's name was with all the frosty receptions in Middle-earth? The Fellowship had greeted me with swords, the Elves of Lothlórien with arrows, and now these guys with spears. I made a five-dollar bet with myself that next time, it'd be axes.

One of the riders came forward, his extra-ornate helm denoting either leadership or a difference in fashion sense. "What business do an Elf, a man, and a Dwarf have in the Riddermark?" he asked sternly. For a second, I wondered why he didn't mention me, but realized that since I was hidden behind Aragorn and Legolas, he probably couldn't see me too well.

When no one answered, the guy snapped, "Speak quickly!"

"Give me your name, Horse-Master, and I shall give you mine," Gimli said. He obviously had yet to learn the valuable life's lesson I'd picked up the day I'd met the Fellowship: do not ever, if you know what's good for you, mouth off to anyone with a weapon. Especially when they're as obviously ticked as ol' Horse-Master was.

"I would cut off your head, Dwarf," he said, jumping down from his horse, "if it stood but a little higher off the ground." Ouch.

In the time it took me to blink, Legolas had loaded an arrow into his bow and pointed it at Horse-Master. "You would die before your stroke fell!" he exclaimed.

With that, the Riders of Rohan went from thinking of us as a "kinda-sorata-maybe-threat" to thinking of us as a "let's-kill-them-before-they-kill-us" threat. And even though Horse-Master hadn't noticed me, some of his boys certainly had: I suddenly found myself staring down the business ends of a dozen very sharp, pointy pieces of steel.

_Thanks a million, Legolas and Gimli,_ I thought darkly.

Aragorn jumped in to do some damage control before we all got skewered. "I'm Aragorn, son of Arathorn," he said as he pressed Legolas's arms down. "This is Gimli, son of Glóin, and Legolas of the Woodland Realm. And this—" He stepped aside so Horse-Master could see me, "—is Alee."

I noticed he didn't add anything to my name. Then again, I'd never told him my surname, or that my dad's name was Ted. Ah, well. "Alee, daughter of Ted" didn't have quite the same effect as "Aragorn, son of Arathorn" anyway.

"Your daughter?" Horse-Master asked Aragorn, glancing at me.

"Oh, no," I said, shaking my head for emphasis. "No relation at all, actually. I'm just along for the ride, pretty much. Long story."

Horse-Master looked like he wanted to ask something more, but decided against it. Fine with me; I wasn't really in the mood to answer a round of "Who are you and where are you from?" questions.

"We are friends of Rohan," Aragorn said, "and of Théoden, your king." Well, _I_ wasn't. But that was mostly because I didn't know him.

Horse-Master removed his helmet—and since he apparently trusted us not to bash his skull in or whatever, his men decided _they_ trusted us enough to get their spears out of our faces. "Théoden no longer recognizes friend from foe…not even his own kin. I am Éomer, son of Éomund, sister-son of the king."

Well, good to know the guy had a name. But…sister-son? What the—oh. _Sister's son._ Got it. He must have meant he was the king's nephew. Or something.

"Saruman has poisoned the mind of the king and claimed lordship over these lands," Éomer told us. "My company are those loyal to Rohan, and for that we are banished.

Hmm…causing mountains to collapse on hapless travelers, kidnapping hobbits, orchestrating the hostile takeover of a kingdom…my, but Saruman was just a busy little evil beaver lately.

"The White Wizard is cunning," Éomer went on. "He walks here and there, they say, as an old man hooded and cloaked. And everywhere, his spies slip past our nets." I couldn't be certain but, as he said this, he seemed to look directly at me.

"What is _with_ you Middle-earth people always thinking I'm a spy?" I hissed to Aragorn. "First I'm spying for this Sauron dude, and now I'm suddenly Saruman's inside man? Give me a break! Who do I look like, 007?"

"What?"

Oh. Right. No pop-culture references. I really needed to remember that. Surely Aragorn and the others thought I was weird enough without me making random James Bond jokes.

"We are no spies," Aragorn told Éomer. "We track a party of Uruk-hai westward across the plain. They have taken two of our friends captive."

"The Uruks are destroyed," Éomer said. "We slaughtered them during the night." Nice. That took care of that, then.

Gimli spoke up. "But there were two hobbits! Did you see two hobbits with them?"

Éomer blinked, looking as confused as I usually felt.

"They would be small—only children to your eyes," Aragorn tried.

There was a long pause, during which Éomer's expression went from "Huh?" to "Oh, sh—".

"We left none alive," he finally said. "We piled the carcasses and burned them." He pointed, and I saw a plume of white smoke rising into the air somewhere past the wall of riders.

"They're dead?" Gimli asked disbelievingly.

"I am sorry," Éomer said. He looked down for a moment; then he let out a sharp whistle and called, "Hasufel! Arod!"

Two horses ambled forward. The first was brown, the second grayish-white, and both were all geared up.

"May these horses bear you to better fortune than their former masters," Éomer said, handing the reins to Aragorn and Legolas. He added, "Farewell," before replacing his helmet and mounting his own horse.

_Oh, sure,_ I thought. _Tell us you might have offed our friends, give us some horses as a consolation prize, and take off. You're a real pal, Éomer._

But he had one more thing to say to us. "Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands." Then, to his crew, "We ride north!"

And the Riders of Rohan galloped off down the plain, leaving us alone with the knowledge that the Fellowship had just gotten even smaller.

_Well, there you have it. Hope you liked that, and please feel free to review. It makes me feel loved, and brightens days otherwise filled with truckloads of AP homework. No idea when I'll post the next chapter—haven't even finished _writing _it yet. We'll see._

_Oh, and thanks to **Hellfires Fury, Xclaire BearX, **and **Mystic Archer Horse** for reviewing chapter 14 of the last one._


	2. The Big Ball o' Camera Flashy

_All right, I know people have been waiting around for this chapter, so I'll skip the usual excuses. Here, finally, is Chapter Two, and I hope you enjoy it and also that you won't hate me too much for not updating when I said I would. _   
_To the reviewers: I love you all. Thanks so much._   
_That is all._   
Chapter II 

"Hey, Aragorn? Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

We'd been riding for a few hours. I was on Hasufel, the brown horse, just behind Aragorn. And, since we'd been going at a gallop and I was hanging off the back edge of the saddle, I'd had to keep my arms wrapped firmly around the man's middle to keep from falling off.

Not the most comfortable mode of transportation, but it beat running by a long shot.

"What are we going to do?" I asked him. "I mean, if we get there and Merry and Pippin are…y'know. We set out to rescue them, but what—"

We hit a bump that caused me to go sproinging out of my seat. I yelped and held on to Aragorn even tighter.

When I'd regained my balance, I went on. "We came all the way out here to find them, but if we can't where do we go? I mean, Frodo and Sam are probably halfway to Mordor by now, so what happens to us?"

Aragorn sounded more uncertain than I'd ever heard him as he said, "I don't know, Alee."

Well, _that_ was always nice to hear.

Finally, we came to the source of all the smoke. The stench was enough to make me gag: like someone had taken the contents of the city dump and stuffed it into an oven for several hours. Imagine the nastiest smell that ever hit your nostrils, imagine what it would smell like on fire,, multiply that by a hundred, and you should be somewhere in the ballpark.

Added to that was the plume of acrid smoke rising from the pile of smoldering Uruk-hai. I buried my nose and mouth in the back of Aragorn's cloak.

We rode closer, and the smell only got worse. A few feet away from the smoking pile, stuck on a pike, was the grimacing head of an Uruk who'd apparently run into Rohan's answer to Vlad the Impaler.

Um, gross.

I stayed with the horses while the guys went closer to the smoking mess. As they sifted through it with sword-points and axe-heads, the wind changed and blew a cloud of smoke right into my face. I coughed and shielded my face with my arm.

A couple minutes later, Gimli found something. He held it up for us to see, but I could barely make it out through the haze of smoke. I scooted a little closer.

"It's one of their wee belts," the Dwarf reported.

I felt tears beginning to wend their way down my cheeks, and tried not to imagine their charred little hobbit bodies lying somewhere in that pile. It was so unfair that they'd had to die…they were two of the nicest, funniest guys I'd ever met and now they were gone!

Nearby, Legolas, collected as usual, looked down and murmured something in Elvish.

Aragorn, on the other hand, was anything but collected. With a wordless shout of despair, he kicked one of the Uruks' discarded helmets (guy needed to quit his David Beckham act before he broke a toe) and watched it go sailing off into the distance. Then he sank to his knees, defeated.

"We have failed them," Gimli said somberly.

A couple of minutes passed in silence. Then…

"A hobbit lay here." This from Aragorn, who had begun to paw through the dirt in front of him. He touched another spot, a little to the left. "And the other."

He stood suddenly, eyes still fixed on the dirt. "They crawled. Their hands were bound," he said, moving further from the dead Uruks.

I followed him, wondering how he'd managed to figure that out by just looking at the ground.

"Their bonds were cut." He stooped and picked up a mangled length of rope to show us, and kept on going. "They ran over here…they were followed. Their tracks lead away from the battle!"

He was going quicker now, and I had to jog to keep up. Soon, we were almost completely out of sight of the Uruk-hai bonfire.

Aragorn stopped so suddenly I crashed right into him. Ow. "Away from the battle…" he repeated, "…and into Fangorn Forest."

I looked past him, and saw that we had indeed ended up right that the edge of a stand of trees.

Gimli looked worried. "Fangorn…what madness drove them in there?"

I glanced from him to Aragorn and back, totally lost. "What's Fangorn? Is that bad?"

Not surprisingly, no one answered me. It was like everything was on a need-to-know basis with them, and they didn't think I needed to know. And hey, maybe I didn't, but I still_ wanted_ to.

And then something occurred to me. "Wait a sec. If they ran in _there,_ that means they're not out _here._ Are you telling me Merry and Pippin aren't dead?"

Aragorn nodded.

I shot into the forest with a happy whoop, immediately tripped over a root, scrambled up, and kept going. They were alive! Now all we had to do was find out where they'd gotten to.

Seconds later, the others caught up with me. "Stay close," Aragorn told me. "Fangorn is not a place to go romping about."

"Well, sor-_ry_," I muttered.

Gimli found some goopy black stuff splattered across a shrub. He scooped a bit onto his finger, had a taste, and spat it out right away. "Orc blood!" he exclaimed.

Ick.

I raised Elluin out of its scabbard a little, and sighed in relief when all I saw was steel. No pretty electric-blue glow meant I got to live a little longer.

"These are strange tracks," Aragorn commented as we went on. I looked down, but I didn't see anything. Whatever.

"The air is so close in here," Gimli said a few minutes later. It sounded very much like one of those pointless comments made only to break up a long stretch of silence.

"This forest is old. Very old," Legolas replied. "So old that I almost feel young again, as I have not felt since I journeyed with you children."

Since I was only in my first year of teenagerdom, I wasn't all that bothered by being called a kid. Gimli and Aragorn, however, looked really indignant: I was pretty sure no one had referred to either of them as "children" for a very long time. I laughed at them.

My laughter stopped abruptly when I heard something groan and creak loudly, like a heavy door opening on rusty hinges. I jumped and loosened Elluin in its scabbard. Next to me, Gimli raised his own weapon, looking around frantically.

"The trees are speaking ot each other," Legolas said. The look on his face was far from surprised or scared. He just looked…mildly interested.

"Gimli! Lower your axe!" Aragorn whispered. He shot me a look, and I took my hand off my sword hilt.

"They have feelings, my friends," Legolas said. "The Elves began it: waking up the trees, teaching them to speak…"

And trees had gotten vocal cords…when, exactly? Because last I'd checked, they didn't have any.

"Talking trees," Gimli said, sounding like he believed it as much as I did. "What do trees have to talk about, hmm? Except the consistency of squirrel droppings."

I snickered, but my jaw dropped when the tree closest to us creaked almost menacingly.

"I _do_ believe in spooks, I _do_ believe in spooks!" I muttered under my breath.

"What?" Gimli asked.

"Nothin'."

Meanwhile, Aragorn and Legolas were having a clipped conversation in Elvish. _Oh, sure,_ I thought. _Cut me out of the conversation by saying all the important stuff in a _different language._ Thanks, guys. That makes me feel real loved._

"The White Wizard approaches," Legolas said in English, flicking his head the tiniest bit to one side to indicate from which direction.

Well, crap.

"Do not let him speak," Aragorn whispered. "He will put a spell on us." He very slowly and quietly slid his sword from its scabbard, and I copied him. Legolas nocked an arrow in his bow, and Gimli readied a throwing axe.

To be honest, I didn't want to fight anyone. I _wanted_ a hot meal, a shower, and eight uninterrupted hours of sleep. But if it came down to fighting or possibly getting turned into a toad (or worse), then fighting it was. What I wanted would just have to wait. Again.

We stood still for several incredibly tense seconds. Finally, Aragorn whispered, "We must be quick," and gave a nod. As one, the four of us spun to face Saruman.

It was like someone let off the world's biggest camera flash in our eyes. Except this didn't just last a second; it was continuous. Instinctively, I snapped my eyes shut. I wasn't sure how I was going to fight Saruman off with my eyes closed, but I didn't like the idea of being blinded, either.

Suddenly, I had the distinct feeling that I'd just pressed my left palm onto a stovetop. I yelped, my fingers sprang open, and I opened my eyes just in time to see Elluin, glowing red-hot, drop to the ground.

Not one second later, Aragorn's superheated blade clattered down next to mine. I saw an arrow and a throwing axe arc over my head. The second they touched the big ball o' camera flashy, they…well, it looked like they disintegrated.

Not good.

A booming voice came from the ball o' camera flashy. "You are tracking the footsteps of two young hobbits," it, well, boomed.

Uh-oh. Had Merry and Pippin run into this guy? I hoped not.

"Where are they?" Aragorn demanded.

"Yeah, what'd you do with them?" I added. I was trying to sound tough, but it was a little hard to do that when I was trying to nurse a burnt hand and blink away all the little spots of color clouding my vision at the same time.

"They passed this way the day before yesterday," Saruman said. "They met someone they did not expect. Does that comfort you?"

"No! I exclaimed. "I want to know if they're _okay_!"

Aragorn stared up at the big ball o' camera flashy—well, as much as one _can_ stare at something that's basically frying their eyeballs. "Who are you?" he asked. "Show yourself!"

It's Saruman. Um, duh, Aragorn.

The blinding light receded, and the four of us were left looking at Saruman. Only…

It wasn't actually Saruman.

I blinked a few times, thinking that maybe the big ball o' camera flashy had screwed up my eyes. But no, my vision was fine.

So then why was I seeing Gandalf standing in front of me?

All righty, then. That's it for the second chapter. Hope you liked it. Again, sorry for the wait; I'll try to have the next chapter up a little sooner.


	3. The Local Worm Infestation

_Aaand, we're back, ladies and gentlemen! Sorry for the long wait between updates…I'm going to start writing faster one of these days. Actually, remember how I joked in Book One that I hoped I'd be done with this trilogy before I'm in college? Well, I'd better get my rear in gear, or else I really _will_ be in college before I'm done. Dang._

_So, here's the latest installment for your reading pleasure.__ Hopefully it was longer than the last one; I know I got a couple complaints about length._

_It would have been longer, but I had a couple technical difficulties. See, I was going to have that extended Fangorn scene, and I recorded the audio so I could write at school. Then I turned my recorder on, and it wasn't working. I checked the batteries, and guess what?_

_Well, let's just say that I'm going to go wash the battery acid off my hands and let you read, mmkay?_

Chapter III 

Well. _This _situation had gone from zero to weird in about two seconds flat. Not that I minded not having to fight Saruman, but…Gandalf? Shouldn't he have been, oh, at the center of the earth by now?

I couldn't do more than give him a shocked stare, and Aragorn and Gimli weren't doing much better. Legolas was a little quicker to recover himself; he bowed his head and murmured, "Forgive me. I mistook you for Saruman."

"I _am_ Saruman," Gandalf replied.

Wait. _What?_

"Or rather, Saruman as he should have been."

Oh, all right. That made sense. Or as much sense as could be made in Middle-earth, anyway.

But Mr. Saruman-as-he-should-have-been still had something to answer for; something I'm sure we all wanted to know, but no one had actually bothered to ask yet. I took it upon myself to do so:

"Um…didn't you, like, _die_?"

"Yes," Aragorn added. "You fell."

Gandalf nodded. "Through fire…and water." He launched into a long-winded tale about fighting the Balrog, dying, and then randomly coming back to life. Or something.

We all just kind of stared at him. "Gandalf…" Aragorn said, but then he stopped, looking like he didn't really know how to finish his sentence.

He looked surprised and mildly confused by what Aragorn had called him. "Gandalf? Yes. Gandalf the Grey…that was what they used to call me. _I_ am Gandalf the White." (Because we _really_ couldn't have figured that out from his just-climbed-out-of-a-vat-of-bleach look.) "And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide."

He pulled on a grey traveling cloak that he'd produced from…someplace, and started walking off. The rest of us followed.

"Hey, where are you going?" I asked, picking my way around upraised roots so I didn't trip.

"One stage of your journey is over," Gandalf told us. "Another begins. War has come to Rohan, and we must ride to Edoras with all speed."

Right. Wherever _that_ was.

We tromped through the woods some more, until we emerged back onto the rolling hills. It was a bright, cloudless day, and the sunshine was almost as bad as Gandalf's big ball o' camera flashy after being stuck in dark, shadowy Fangorn for hours.

As soon as we got out, Gandalf whistled. It was, obviously, a magic-laced whistle, since it was far louder and more echo-y than it should have been. I guessed something was supposed to happen, but nothing did. We just…stood there.

Suddenly, Legolas looked surprised. "That is one of the Mearas," he said, "unless my eyes are cheated by some spell."

I followed his gaze. Again, I didn't see a thing. I squinted as hard as I could, and finally, I saw a tiny little white blob on the horizon, getting closer. What was it? That Mearas thingy?

A couple minutes later, it reached us. I guess I'd expected another fantastical Middle-earth creature, but no, it was just a white horse. Okay.

"Shadowfax," Gandalf said, petting the horse's muzzle. "He is the lord of all horses, and has been my friend through many dangers."

Well, that was great, but where were _our_ horses?

Just then, Hasufel and Arod came cantering up behind Shadowfax. Well. Okay, then.

We mounted up and followed Gandalf down through the hills.

An hour or so after the sun went down, we stopped suddenly. Peering around Aragorn, I asked Gandalf, "What's going on? Why'd we stop?"

"We'll make camp here tonight," the wizard said.

Camp? Did he just say…_camp_? I hopped off Hasufel's back, so happy at what Gandalf had said that I could've kissed him.

Except for the part where that would have been gross.

Instead, I flopped down on a patch of scrubby grass, stretched out, and looked up at the stars. Not ten seconds later, I was out like a light.

I could have slept there for a solid month. I ended up getting about five or six hours (which, sadly, was more than I'd gotten in the past four days put together), but I wanted a lot more sleep than that.

By this stage of the journey, it was a pretty well-known fact that I enjoyed early mornings about as much as I enjoyed running. The last time someone had woken me up early on this trip, I nearly gouged his eye out.

Well, that time was an accident, but you get the idea.

I wasn't any less cranky when Aragorn woke me up, but I made an effort not to be mean to him or any of the others. Aside from a couple glares, I succeeded.

We rode on until about noon, when we came upon a city built on a hill.

"Edoras," Gandalf said, "and the golden hall of Meduseld. There dwells Théoden, King of Rohan, whose mind is overthrown. Do not look for welcome here."

As we rode up to the city gates, a shadow fell over me and Aragorn. I looked up, just in time to have something thick and heavy fall straight onto my face from above. Cloth.

With an angry growl, I tore it away. Huh. It was a flag—a white horse running on a deep green field.

Great. Gandalf had said not to expect a warm welcome, but did these people hate me so much that they felt the need to pelt me with flags? What had I ever done to them, anyway?

Inside the gate, nobody looked even _slightly_ happy to see us. Wherever we looked, we were met with baleful stares, if at all.

"You'll find more cheer in a graveyard," Gimli commented, and yeah, that was about the size of it. At least no one threw anything else at us.

At the very top of the hill was a big wooden structure. It might have been the golden hall, except for the part where it really wasn't all that gold. The five of us dismounted and climbed the stone steps to the entrance.

A small troop of guards met us out front. "I cannot allow you before Théoden King so armed, Gandalf Greyhame," the leader said. "By order of Gríma Wormtongue."

Gandalf wordlessly handed over his sword, and motioned for the rest of us to do the same.

Aragorn forked over his sword, his hunting knife, another knife, a small bow, and several arrows. Legolas went next and gave up his bow, arrows, and long knives. Gimli produced no less than seven axes of various shape and size.

My sword and dagger seemed kind of pathetic in comparison.

"Your staff," the Head of Security prompted Gandalf.

Instead of handing it over, the wizard simply leaned on it a bit more heavily, hunched himself over a little, and said, "Oh, you would not part an old man from his walking stick."

After a second, the Head of Security accepted that and let us pass. Gandalf winked at us as we went inside.

I goggled. How could the Head of Security have bought that? How could _anyone_ have bought it, for that matter? No offense to Gandalf or anything, but I'd seen better acting in my school play. The man was frail and in need of a walking stick just like I was an elf princess and dating Legolas.

But then again, Gandalf _was _a wizard. Maybe he'd just used his magic to pull some kind of crazy Jedi mind trick on the Head of Security. Yeah. That must have been it.

The main room of the hall was big—a lot bigger than it had looked from the outside. The walls were covered with tapestries, and those gave me more of an idea of why these people were called the Horse-Lords: they were _everywhere._ Horses, I mean. On the tapestries. Prancing in fields, riding off to war beneath their masters…one even depicted a particularly mean-looking one flinging its rider to his doom. Okay. Fun.

I noticed that there were a bunch of people in the room next. Maybe they were servants or courtiers or something; I couldn't tell, since they were all hanging back and watching us from the shadows. Which, by the way, was kind of creepy. I counted more than a dozen pairs of eyes, all eyeing us suspiciously as we walked by.

"The courtesy of your hall is somewhat lessened of late, Théoden King," Gandalf said, his voice echoing slightly off the walls.

_Somewhat _lessened? Some jerk had tried to suffocate me with a flag, we'd just had to go through Middle-earth's version of airport security, and now everyone in the room was doing their best to make us feel like prey being stalked by a pack of…really bad things. So if this was only a _somewhat_ lessened welcome, I'd hate to see what these people did to the local door-to-door salesmen.

A raspy, creaky voice answered from the other end of the room. "Why…should I welcome _you_…Gandalf Stormcrow?"

I looked around for the source of the voice. Way down at the far end of the room was a throne. And _on_ that throne…

…At first, I thought maybe someone had just left a really huge pile of dirty laundry on it or something, and that the king was going to be kind of pissed when he showed up. But, on closer inspection, I saw that it was actually a guy.

To say he was old would have been the universe's biggest understatement. He'd passed "old" a long, long way back. All I could see of him was his face and a pair of gnarled, liver-spotted hands; the rest of him was hidden by a fur mantle and a crazy tangle of white hair and beard. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes that ran almost all the way down to his cheeks, and the wrinkles on his face were deep enough to house some serious trench warfare.

No, this guy wasn't old. He was ancient. He was Legolas without whatever anti-aging magic the elves had. Dude was a fossil.

And he was also, judging by the dull gold crown on his head, the king of this miserable country.

There was another guy with him: pale, with stringy black hair and mean little eyes, whispering something in his ear. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Creepy got up and started toward us.

"Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear," he announced. "Láthspell I name him…ill news is an ill guest."

"Be silent," Gandalf commanded him. "I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm." He brandished his staff like he was about to smack Tall, Dark, and Creepy down.

Tall, Dark, and Creepy (who I figured to be this Wormtongue guy, given Gandalf's insult) looked shocked. "His staff…I _told_ you to get the wizard's staff!" he whined to the Head of Security.

All the guys watching us decided that they'd help do that, and they attacked from all sides. A minute later, thanks to a few right hooks and kidney punches from Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli, all of them were down for the count. Gimli had even managed to knock Wormtongue down and pin him to the floor with his boot.

"Théoden, son of Thengel," Gandalf said, striding up to the throne with his staff raised. "Too long have you sat in the shadows. I release you from this spell."

A weird gurgling noise issued from Théoden's throat; as it went on, I realized that he was laughing. He burst into a full-out, manic cackle. "You…have no power here…Gandalf the Grey."

Gandalf threw off his traveling cloak, and _fwoosh!_ The big ball o' camera flashy was back. Most of it was aimed at Théoden this time, though, so my eyes didn't suffer quite so much.

Théoden gasped and drew back in his seat.

"I will draw you, Saruman, as poison is drawn from a wound!" Gandalf said.

Whoa. Wait. _What?_ Gandalf had said that Théoden's mind had been overthrown or whatever, but I hadn't thought that had meant actual, literal _possession._ Weird.

Gandalf waved his staff around some more, and it made Théoden writhe and twitch spastically.

"If I go," the king said, "Théoden dies." And it wasn't the same creaky old-man voice anymore, either: it was clearer, deeper, crueler. Yikes.

"You did not kill me, and you will not kill him," Gandalf insisted.

"Rohan is mine!"

"Begone!"

With a wordless yell, Théo—um, Saruman, hauled himself off the throne and lunged at Gandalf. There was a resounding _crack_ as his skull was introduced to the business end of Gandalf's staff, and he fell back into his seat.

"So, uh…what just happened here?" I asked. No one bothered to answer; my voice was left to bounce around the room.

Théoden—Saruman still?—let out a groan and started to keel over, but a pretty blonde woman rushed over and propped him back up. Who was she? The king's daughter, maybe?

The room was silent, and all eyes were glued to Théoden. And, before all those eyes, something very strange happened: Théoden started to change.

It was so subtle that it took me a few seconds to even notice it was happening, but it looked like he was aging in reverse. The liver spots vanished, the wrinkles melted off his face, the bags under his eyes retreated, and his hair and beard went from white to graying blond.

The fossil had been replaced with a man in maybe his mid-fifties. That exorcism had worked better than Botox.

Théoden (I was pretty sure that it was the real Théoden this time) blinked at the woman holding him and said slowly, "I know your face…Éowyn."

Éowyn, whoever she was, smiled and hugged him.

Théoden stood. "Dark have been my dreams of late," he said quietly. He flexed his hands, and something went _pop._

"Your fingers would remember their old strength better if they grasped your sword," Gandalf suggested.

The Head of Security brought a sheathed sword forward and presented it to the king. Théoden reached out, took hold of the hilt, and loosed it with the sound of ringing steel. And hey, he was left-handed like me. Cool.

He stood there for a minute, admiring the majesty of his sword or whatever. And then he caught sight of Wormtongue. His face hardened, and he snapped his fingers.

Wormtongue looked about ready to wet himself as the Head of Security and another guard took him from Gimli's clutches and dragged him toward the doors.

Then, they threw him out. Like, literally opened the doors and gave him the old heave-ho. And it was a pretty good throw, too: Wormtongue got some serious air before hitting the front steps, bouncing a few times, and finally rolling to a stop at the bottom.

Is it bad that I found that kind of funny?

Théoden was out the door right behind him—only he walked—and boy, did he look mad. Actually, if the way he was waving his sword around was anything to go by, then maybe "murderous" was a better word.

"I-I've only _ever_ served you, my lord!" Wormtongue stammered, scuttling backward a little.

"Your leechcraft would have had me crawling on all fours like a beast!" Théoden raged.

Huh? So…Wormtongue was in on the possess-the-king plot? I glanced over at him. Yeah, that fit.

"Send me not from your sight!" Wormtongue sniveled.

I don't know if he wasn't paying attention or what, because it was pretty clear that the only place Théoden wanted to send him was six feet under. The king stepped forward, sword poised for a killing blow, and…

…well, I closed my eyes. Yeah, Wormtongue was creepy and not a very nice person, and yeah, if I were in Théoden's place, I'd probably want to kill him too, given the circumstances. But that didn't mean I actually wanted to watch the guy get dismembered.

Then I heard a _whumpf!_ sound, and Aragorn exclaiming, "No! No, my lord!"

I cracked one eye open, and when I didn't see any blood, I opened the other one. Aragorn was wrestling Théoden's sword away and attempting to talk him down. "Let him go," he said. "Enough blood has been spilt on his account."

Théoden took a minute to think that over. Finally, he relinquished his sword. Then Aragorn, in a gesture that was maybe a little _too_ nice, offered a hand to help Wormtongue up.

He didn't take it; he stood on his own. Understandable, I guess.

And then, as if helping Saruman's hostile takeover of Rohan wasn't enough to prove what a complete scuzzball he was, he made a noise in his throat, reared back, and hocked a loogie right into Aragorn's outstretched hand.

For his part, Aragorn took that pretty well. He looked moderately disgusted and shook the spit off his hand. Nothing else. What a good man; if it had been me, I'd have decked him—mercy be damned—and maybe even have given Théoden his sword back. You don't just spit on people offering to help you.

Wormtongue, with a shout of, "Get out of my way!", shoved his way past several bystanders and took off down the road toward the gates. Good riddance; hopefully, that was the last we'd see of him.

"Hail, Théoden King!" somebody called. All the citizens and soldiers got down on their knees and bowed. I stood there for a second, wondering what to do. I could stay where I was since Théoden wasn't _my_ king, or I could bow.

I picked the latter for a two reasons. One, it was the polite thing to do, and it's always a good thing to be polite to kings with homicidal tendencies. Two, Aragorn dropped right to his knees and bowed; since he was basically the king of Gondor, and since I wanted to stay on his good side until he _claimed_ that kingship, I thought it best to do as he did.

So, all in all, the last twenty-four hours hadn't been too bad. We'd found out that Merry and Pippin were not only alive, but safe, we'd been reunited with Gandalf, we'd finally gotten some sleep, we'd exorcised a king, and we'd taken care of the local, um…_worm_ infestation. All in all, an okay day.

Then Théoden looked around and asked, "Where is Théodred? Where is my son?"

Among the citizens and guards of Edoras, there was a sudden outbreak of uncomfortable shuffling around, and nobody seemed to remember how to look their king in the eye.

I got the feeling that somehow, things had just gotten a lot less okay.

---

_Ta-da! That's it. Review, por favor._

_I've got AP testing coming up, and I really, really need to study. So you guys probably won't hear anything from meuntil this time next month at the earliest. Yeah, I'm disappearing again, but at least I'm giving you all fair warning this time. See you soon._

_Oh, and a big thank you to __**Padme4000**__**Xclaire**__**BearX**__**Mystic**__**Archer**__**Horse**__, and __**lotrelves**__ for reviewing. Hugs for all you guys!_


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